The Brief Adventures of the Suicidal Cat
by Jameson
Summary: Exotica is tired of being ignored. She's had it with this mortal coil, and is ready to shed this life for better things: like the Heaviside Layer.


The Brief Adventures of the Suicidal Cat: A CATS fanfiction

The Brief Adventures of the Suicidal Cat: A CATS fanfiction

I hate my life.

No one ever notices me, or talks to me or tries to be nice to me, not even as a pity friend. I never join in games or dance, and mostly I just sit in the background and sulk. You'd think with my sleek body and exotic features that I'd be popular with the boys... I mean, Cassandra is popular, and I look a lot like her - a younger, lither version of her without the pale face so I can't understand why she's hot stuff and I'm invisible. And it's not just boys, the queens don't notice me either. I've sat for days in the same place before and brooded while cat after cat just walked by. They never notice me.

I just want to end it all...

So I'm going to the heaviside layer!

First step is to get in the program for the next ball... if Old Deuteronomy sees me sing and dance he's BOUND to pick me! I mean, I am beautiful... even if those common strays don't notice. And in order to get into the program, I have to talk to the Emcee... our favorite silver tabby, Munkustrap, who is extremely popular and totally lucky except for the part where he keeps getting ripped to shreds by Macavity. I'd take the lashings for popularity. I think its worth it.

"Munkustrap!"

He was sitting up on the top of the trash with a couple other toms, talking. I was lucky he was here at all this far from ball-time, he has a home where he belongs, lucky jerk, and the junkyard's largely deserted in the off-season. The Jellicle moon was high enough I suppose to get him started on event coordination. He was going over some kind of list with Alonso and Asparagus, who were his closest friends among the junkyard residents, even though Asparagus is all old and stuff. Alonso's cute, but he fancies Cassandra. Figures... the viper strikes again.

"Munkustrap!" I crawled up the back of a beat-up auto chassy and hung over his head.

"Bustopher wants in again." Alonso was saying.

"Again?" Munkustrap gaped. "Does he realize what the point of these proceedings are? He's said before he doesn't want to pass on... he's having far to much fun gorging himself to death."

"He wants the limelight." Asparagus said.

"I know I know." Munkustrap dismissed. "We'll slide him in early... with any luck Deuteronomy will show up late again and miss him completely."

"Munkustrap!" I hovered a little further out. "Up here! Hey! WOAH!"

"AAK!"

That was the sound of me slipping off the car and landing in his lap. He handled it graciously though... he was probably embarrassed about not noticing me before since he's supposed to be aware of things like people sneaking up from behind him shouting his name. "Oh... Exotica. Hi."

"Hi." I rolled back to my feet and turned on a little sugar. "Sorry about that, I guess I lost my footing. What luck though, I wanted to speak to you!"

He nodded graciously and put on a smile with just as much saccharine. "Later, Exotica, please, we are in the middle of something."

"Planning the Ball?" I prompted.

"Yes," he answered, "so you can see how important - "

"But that's exactly what I wanted to talk about!" I jumped up on top of the list and noticed Alonso and Asparagus exchange a skeptical glance. I ignored them and twitched my tail. "I want to have a song this year."

"A song?" He seemed somewhat amused. "What would you sing about?"

"About how I want to go to the Heaviside Layer." I answered with utter seriousness.

He eased back and into a deep look of understanding. "The Heaviside Layer."

"Yes." I answered. "I want to go."

"You're awful young." He noted. "Are you sure you want to go now?"

"Yes I'm sure." I reiterated. "I've given this a lot of thought." Like, in the hours I spend loathing myself every day.

He shook his head like he doubted my integrity. "Exotica, dear, really... you have lives ahead of you. Old Deuteronomy would never pick you, even if you had the most moving dance he'd ever seen. He believes in second-chances and perseverance." Munkustrap raised a paw to my chin but I backed away from it. He lost the concern in his voice. "Have some perspective."

"I've done all the thinking and planning you could ever want me to do." I said, sharply. "I want my second chance now. I want to go to the Heaviside Layer and the only way I can do it is if you put me in the show."

He smirked a little.

I arched an eyebrow. "Do it or I'll claw you."

"Try it and you'll regret it." Hissed Alonso who had the nerve to butt into my very important and private conversation.

Munkustrap raised a paw and Alonso sat back down, but he had a venomous stare glued to me from then out. Asparagus gave Munkustrap a little council. "I think she's serious."

Munkustrap looked back to me. "If this is what you really want, I'll give you a slot, but I'm telling you now, you won't be chosen. The Jellicle Choice is Old Deuteronomy's. He'll chide you, pet you, tell you of the infinite faith he has in you, but he'll never let you pass on while you have so much time left to find happiness on your own. He's lived long enough to know that lives take different turns, and would ascend himself before he cut yours short."

"Thank you for the slot." I said. I slinked off his list. "Excuse me, I must prepare my act."

Alonso hissed again as I returned to my friendless shadow.

Second step is to come up with an act. I pondered all that afternoon about what angle I should take; should I sing of my beauty? Of my gorgeously exotic face and dark brown coat? Should I sing of my epic loneliness and stir his heart with tales of woe and rejection? That's what Grizabella did last year and it seemed to work. Maybe I shouldn't sing at all, but communicate all I need to say through the majestic swaying of my back and careful arching of my slender limbs?

I decided to complain to music and hope the Grizabella card didn't wear out with repetition.

"A face so dark it fades into the night! A day so lonely she forgets that it's light! Exotica!" I rehearsed out on the paddock knowing no one would notice me there. "Exotica! The queen of the queens who no one sees!"

"Exotica."

Everlasting Cat someone saw me! I whirled around to spot Alonso's black and white mug on the open drainpipe and felt my hopes dash again. He noticed me because he's still made at me. "Oh its you."

"Your song is awful." He said sharply. "You should give up now."

"What an explosion of confidence." I said, returning to dancing. "I think you're lying. I think my song is wonderful and you want me to quit because I'm going to prove Munkustrap wrong."

"No, your song is actually awful." He answered. "The only way it'll succeed is if Deuteronomy sends you on to shut you up."

"Then I guess it will have worked then." I said, acidly. "Don't you have other cats to oagle?"

"You're the one complaining about being lonely." Alonso pointed out. "You've got an audience and you're driving him off."

"You're not an audience, you're a heckler." I said. "I have lyrics to write if you don't mind..."

He took on a less aggressive posture. "Is being lonely all your problem is?"

"No, you're a problem too." I said.

"You know, if you were nicer to people they might talk to you." He noted. "You ever think that your problem was you?"

"I gave people their chance." I dismissed.

He headed back up the rubbish, leaving a pearl of wisdom behind for me to play with. "You know, Grizabella ended her song with hope and passed on with gratitude. If I were Old Deuteronomy..."

"Yeah whatever, go pretend to be Deuteronomy somewhere else."

He narrowed his eyes on me. "Your song is still awful."

He left me alone for real, but I couldn't help taking his words into consideration. Grizabella left with a bit of hope? She did see the next morning as another chance to reclaim the happiness of her past, I recall her saying that. And when she climbed into the sky she looked like her every dream had come true.

I could act it. I'd gotten this far. And my lyrics were timeless, Alonso had no idea what he was talking about.

I would make it to the Heaviside Layer.

I had to.

It was the only way I could be happy.

Step three was to actually win Deuteronomy's favor. Unfortunately the ball was a full three days away, so I was left to imagine this. I imagined him watching my dance with tears in his eyes, then standing up and saying "No more! This pathetic creature is the most poetic thing in this world... she deserves to pass into the next, it would be a crime to keep her here where she is unwanted!"

For some reason his speech got longer every time he made it.

I took a break from staring at the sky and imagining to dance a little more. I had this great double back bend planned that took me from all fours all the way over the top then back to the ground on the other side like a contortionist. It was a genius move, I'd patted myself on the back a lot for it.

I'd just started when I heard my name again.

"Exotica." I recognized the voice. Mukustrap was sitting on the drain pipe this time. "Talk to me a second."

"What?" I asked, flatly. "Did Alonso tattle on me?"

"You should be glad he did." He replied. "He gave you half the lecture I was planning for you and saved us both the trouble."

"Only half? Darn." I crossed my arms across my chest elegantly.

He looked weary, and I couldn't tell if it was because of me or something else. He sighed and took up where Alonso had left off. "I know you think you're doing the right thing, but you can't earn your way into the next life."

"This is repetitive." I said.

"I'm sorry." He apologized, sincerely. "I don't know another way to convince you. If you won't listen to reason, then I beg you to consider the possibility that you won't be chosen. I'm afraid, with the way you are thinking now..."

"Afraid of what?" I interrupted.

He wore a peculiar look I'd never seen on his face before. It was nothing sappy like pity or condescending like a teacher or a father, it was really hard to describe. It involved something weird with his eyebrows... I felt like he was sayign something like "I wasn't expecting you to interrupt me like that but upon reflection I'm not all that surprised." What made him think he knew me that well? He spoke simply and his voice matched his look. "Afraid that you'd hurt yourself."

"Don't be stupid." I hissed. "I'm not a masochist like you."

"Hmph." He pondered that for a minute. "Okay, I'll give up figuring that one out for now. Maybe you won't hurt yourself physically, but you'll hurt yourself mentally and emotionally like you have been for so long. I've noticed, before, you sitting still for days not talking, ignoring anyone who passed and never eating or sleeping."

I looked back at him. "You noticed that?"

"Yes." He replied. "Others did too. They came to me and told me about it in case I hadn't. You worry them sometimes."

"No I don't." I insisted, but he was shaking me up a bit. Had I missed something in my reverie? Did people really stop and ask? Try to get my attention? I couldn't remember. "I'm invisible to them. That's why I deserve to go to the Heaviside Layer... the cats there are all sparkly and perfect and will give me a second chance."

"You should try giving your friends here a second chance." Munkustrap suggested. "A conversation takes both parties. The only person you talk to is yourself."

"When you're not bothering me." I snapped.

He shrugged and shook his head. "Alright, point taken. I've said all I had anyway." He didn't pause for effect like Alonso did, but he did leave a pearl behind. "Things wont be different in the second life if you don't take the effort to make them that way."

I stopped dancing, stood there in the middle of the clearing where anyone could see me and pondered over the recent past and everything he and Alonso had said or tried to say. There was a lot there and it took a couple hours to get through it all. In the midst of it, a slinky female cat eased up behind me. I halted my thoughts and felt her study the hairs on the back of my neck, then watched as she moved around to the front. "Exotica?"

"Cassandra?" I asked.

"What are you doing out here?"

"Thinking." I answered. "About my dance at the ball."

"I heard you were dancing." She said. "I heard it was awful."

"You heard it from Alonso."

"Yes I did." She smiled a little wryly. "I don't think you should dance it."

"Why not?" I asked, trying to ice my words with bite. "Because I'll injure onlookers?"

"No, because it'd be a shame to see you go." Cassandra said. "I always thought of you as a sort of little sister to me. A quiet one, quite obviously, but we look so very similar, I can only assume we share a lineage somewhere in this city."

"You never made me feel like a sister before." I said.

"Perhaps not." She moved fluidly away. "But then again, I was never good at that kind of thing."

I was starting to feel strange, like a million eyes were on me, and this is weird for me. What kind of change had just been made that suddenly made me feel noticed? I'd lived so long thinking I was the only one who bothered to care about me...

It would take far too much time to think it over. I had to practice if I wanted to be chosen at the ball. But I was too distracted to practice. Thinking took a hold of me and I sat on the drainpipe and wasted hours and hours in deep all-consuming personal reflection. Before I knew it, it was the night of the ball. I waited as Bustopher Jones took a seat before the other Jellicles and regaled them of some tuna he'd had for lunch. Munkustrap bowed deeply and left the circle, finding his way to me on the side. "Are you ready?"

"Huh?" I gave him my full attention, and he was the first to receive that honor in days.

"For your act." He said. "Are you ready to go on?"

"Oh.. no." I answered. "I- I got distracted."

"Do you want me to skip you?" He asked with a bit of a smile.

He nodded slowly. I felt a smile tug my lips and turned away, embarrassed. "Yes."

He craned his neck around to get a look at me again. "You can always try again next year."

"I don't think so." I said. "I think I'll try something else."

"Okay." He sounded satisfied with himself, but I didn't even mind. I was wrapped up in the sense of visibility I'd just discovered.

I looked at him much more cordially. "I hope I haven't messed up your schedule by dropping out... that I didn't ruin the evening."

"Oh don't worry." He nudged me a little. "I'm sure there's a story I can tell."


End file.
